We're aware of an issue with converting some DOC, DOCX, ODT, and RTF files to EPUB through our Ebook Wizard.
We've created this Forum Thread with some workarounds and advice to assist you in publishing you ebook.

We usually suggest you look in your genre. For example, a 400 page science text book may easily sell for $150 per copy while a novel may be priced at $9.99. Keep in mind that consumers are price conscience, particularly with unknown authors.

You may want to start out with a lower price to attract readers. The best advertisement for a new book is to get readers talking about it and referring it to their friends.

You need to think about the paperback and the ebook separately. As Kevin says you need to factor in manufacturing costs for the paperback, but you've got a lot more freedom with the ebook. As an example my (large) paperback is priced at £18.99 for me to make about £1 profit per sale. I get slightly more profit per sale by selling the ebook for £1.99. Most people aren't prepared to pay £18.99 for a book by an unknown author (I know I wouldn't), so it's not suprising that ebooks make up well over 95% of my sales.

There are two schools of thought with book pricing though. One is the method that I've employed - try to undercut the prices charged by traditional publishing houses to make the book more attractive to potential buyers. It works for me. However, I know one self-published author who deliberately avoids this and prices her books at £5.99 or so. The theory goes like this: people tend to think that self-published books aren't as good as traditionally published ones. When you price your book at bargain basement prices you're just reinforcing that belief. If you price the book in the same bracket as traditionally published ones you help to remove the suspicion that the book's not much good, and you get more sales. Personally, I'm sceptical of this approach, but it comes from someone whose book spent months in the Amazon top 100, so what do I know?

One last thing: you don't need to stick to one price. Move the price about until you find a balance between profit and sales that you're comfortable with. My paperback price has never changed because I can't reduce it enough to influence the sales anyway, but I started (IIRC) my ebook at £1.49 and kept my eye on the sales. Every month I moved the price up until I noticed the sales dropping off. Then I lowered it back to a point where I was happy with the sales but I wasn't crippling myself on the profits. Experiment. Watch the sales data and act accordingly. (Without knee jerk reactions - you need to be patient. Day to day sales go up and down of their own accord, so pick a decent time frame and average your sales data out to get a more reliable view.)

I appreciate all your feedback. I've been spending time checking out other comparable novels. This is a 6 x 9 standard print format. I have a good response form the front/back cover and wrote something I'm very willing to put my name on.

I believe in getting paid for my effort . I've also decided to 1st offer it as a paperback, then as an ebook, to quell my piracy concerns. Thought I saw something like 'lookinside' created as a PDF that I'd like to include and a blurb.

I appreciate all your feedback. I've been spending time checking out other comparable novels. This is a 6 x 9 standard print format. I have a good response form the front/back cover and wrote something I'm very willing to put my name on.

It's a shame we cannot place them in more than one genre, but there's also always the Tags.

I believe in getting paid for my effort .

Well good luck with that! If you work out how many hours you spent on it, at just Minimum Wage, you would possibly have to sell 5,000 ASAP

I've also decided to 1st offer it as a paperback, then as an ebook, to quell my piracy concerns.

I would not worry about that, until you are very famous.

Thought I saw something like 'lookinside' created as a PDF that I'd like to include and a blurb.

Not sure what you mean about that. After you have created your book/s you can add a Description and create a Preview of a few pages in the last part of a Project Wizard, that will appear on your Spotlight. The Description will follow on to other sites, and those other sites usually also create their own Previews. You can upload a Preview for the ePubs, but again, places like Amazon create their own.

It's the tip of a massive iceberg in which 1000s if not millions of books are published a day. Some of those writers have also been publishing for decades and often at the rate of a new book every 6 months. It all adds up. And of course they became famous, often with the help of TV and film deals.

A 400 page novel is pretty large and in the POD world large means expensive to produce.

When I arrived at Lulu it was with a 750 page novel of around 150,000 words (I mention words because the font size applied to those will change page count). The price shocked me so it became two books, Parts 1 & 2. Originally as paperbacked pocketbooks but also now A5 paperbacks because for some reason they are cheaper!

Have you utilised space efficiently? Edited the book of unnecessary words. Used appropriate font size and spacing with no gaps between paragraphs etc?

Margin sizes not too large? Headers to low? Footers too high? (or why not combine them? Just use a Header including page numbers.) What about actual page size? Can another be used?

The novel is 6 x9 x .5 12pt. approx 36 lines per page. The only trim space would be between sections and chapters,

which I wanted open to rest your eyes. The original was 170,000 word count trimmed to 138,000, some of which

can go into a sequel.

I thought about splitting into two novels, but there is no logical break, besides everything is interwoven.

I have a copy of Watership Down which is 8 x 5.5 x .5 40 lines per page. The body is 475 pages.

As for pricing, I'm thinking $15.00 to $16.00

It is hard to be objective about one's own work.

As a suggestion, find a friend who is brutally honest. Persuade him or her to read the manuscript, and then ask, "what would you pay for this book if it were written by someone other than me?"

Hopefully, this will lead to a conversation about the relative value of the book. The friend might say, "$2 at a yard sale maybe" or might say, "I'd give my left arm." Be prepared for the entire spectrum of response.